Bye, bye Bittul Weeed!

For someone who loves gardens but hates gardening, I’m not quite sure how I ended up with such a large one. (Oo’er missus!) About a quarter of an acre at the back of the house that is far more demanding of your time than a three-year-old with ADHD.

This hasn’t been too much of a problem so far as Mrs P loves gardening. She can tell the difference between a weed and a fuschia for a start, which is more than I can. She was also happy (?) to put the hours in, hoeing the borders, digging in the compost etc.

I confess that my contribution has been marginal, but given Mrs P’s health problems it was time to stand up and be counted and lend a hand with the heavy work. And ended up being bent double after mowing the lawn.

That’s the thing about the lawn that makes up most of our garden, it’s such bloody tyrant demanding to cut at least one a week at this time of year, if not twice every ten days,

And it is no quick task. It takes about two hours from the dog poo trawl at the start (not what you want on your Flymo blade), dragging the mower out of the shed and trailing extension leads out the door, ploughing the furrow, as it were, breaking off for a beer, tipping the grass in the green wheelie bin and the final trim with the strimmer.

But what prompted this post isn’t my saintly efforts, but that of weed and feed. I’ve never been keen on the stuff since it burnt a previous sward black about 20 years ago. Mrs P holds the faith though and trundled round the lawn last week with one of those little hopper things and the results have been amazing.

The moss has gone and the bare patches are already being reclaimed by grass, the clover is a distant memory, the buttercups that were gaining a bridgehead have been thrown back into the sea and the odd dandelion that sticks its head out of the earth is stunted and shriveled.

What I want to know though is how does the weedkiller know what to kill? How does it know the difference between a buttercup or a bit of moss and the grass? It’s on a par with that other great question: How does the paracetamol know which bit of your body is hurting?

Nobody’s prefect. If you find any spelling mistakes or other errors in this post, please let me know by highlighting the text and pressing Ctrl+Enter.

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Hello there! Just dropped by your blog for the first time. Nice reading. Like the ego-maniac I am, I was looking for your alphabet meme thingy based on my recent idea – instead I find confessions of a reluctant gardener. The weedkiller and the paracetamol are like willies – they know where to go by magic. By the way I love the way your blog got its name. Kids can come out with some crazy stuff! My daughter invented a word that still makes sense to me – “willn’t” as in “will not” but she’s eighteen this year and she doesn’t use that word any more. Sad how they chain us.